Status Quo Won’t Beat Doom and Gloom

As the Democrats meet in Philadelphia this week, they convene with greater discord than they had a week ago and with Donald Trump now in the lead. His convention speech sets the tone for Clinton’s. His was doom and gloom — midnight in America.

But Clinton cannot go with the status quo. And if she tries to go back to the “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow” theme her husband used, that’s just asking for a Marco Rubio style attack on the candidate of yesterday talking about yesterday.

Likewise, Clinton cannot run away from Barack Obama. She has already hacked off Bernie’s supporters. She cannot afford to burn bridges with the Obama coalition. So she will have to own the status quo — a status quo that more and more Americans dislike. It is a status quo that Trump painted broadly as a disaster. We have cops being killed, terrorists storming the West killing themselves and others, and a resurgent China — not to mention the Mexican rapists killing young women in sanctuary cities.

The Clinton camp is going to have to project strong leadership and optimism without embracing a status quo while also not rejecting it. It is a tall order.

Trump has moved into the lead. The Russians are working to undermine the election. And the Democrats are fracturing.